


Jung At Heart

by loveyhowl



Category: True Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 13:04:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3611106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveyhowl/pseuds/loveyhowl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 4. Originally published 08/03/2011.</p>
<p>Bill does some couch time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jung At Heart

Dr. Lydia Broussard had seen her share of the terrifying and the sublime in her thirty years as a top psychologist. She'd spent ten of those years as a postdoctoral psychology fellow at New York University; the latter twenty at the helm of a successful practice in New York City catering to the Manhattan elite, the Average Joe, and every possible type of patient in between. Somewhere around the age of sixty-seven she began to feel a certain restlessness, a definite weariness in her soul, and was surprised to find that it was the desire to go home tugging at her heart.

With the economy being what it was Dr. Broussard couldn't be sure how business would be in Shreveport—certainly not as lucrative as New York—but she really didn't care. Shreveport was her ancestral home and she still had hundreds of family members there. Even though she hadn't seen any of them in over thirty years she knew that her reconnection with them would be a happy one. It took a year and a half to transition her patients, sell her co-op and settle her other affairs.

On a hot August morning she visited her dead lover's grave for the last time, bid him and New York adieu, and then headed for the airport.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On this particular balmy October evening Dr. Broussard found herself pacing the floor of her office. She had counseled killers; hit men; corrupt government officials; psychotic housewives; disgruntled employees; troubled teens; thousands of people living on the edge of life and at the end of their rope; looking for someone to blame, a savior, or an easy way out. Each one of them had been a risk to deal with; each one of them had given her pause to be concerned about her own safety. On more than one occasion she'd found it necessary to hire private security to guard her at work and at home. Even her scariest client didn't instill enough fear in her to call it quits and kiss it all goodbye. She thought she was pretty tough; she thought she had seen everything there was to see. Then the vampires came out of the coffin.

In the three years that they made it known that they wanted to assimilate peacefully into the world at large Dr. Broussard had only met a handful of them, and never in a professional capacity. The vampires seemed to pride themselves as not being human, which always amused her. They were human once. So they were supernatural, preternatural—so what? They were not just lumps of dead tissue. Dr. Broussard simply refused to believe their claims that they did not feel, did not love; that they had no humanity left in them. Total bullshit. Why, the intense bond between maker and progeny was a direct contradiction to that lie. So many of them were out of the coffin, but so in the closet about love. Especially love between vampires and humans. Even so, Dr. Broussard never thought, despite their vehement public declarations and secret torments, that she would ever see a vampire knocking on her door seeking a seat on her couch. Which was why she could have been knocked over by a feather a year ago, when Bill Compton came calling.

She looked nervously at the clock: ten p. m. on the dot. Late? She hadn't seen him in over six months, but he had always been punctual in the past. She walked over to the window behind her desk and looked out into the brightly moonlit night—no movement on the lawn, no traffic on the street. She turned to take a seat at her desk and there he was.

"Mr. Compton," she began, obviously flustered, "Forgive me, I..."

"No, please accept my apology for being late. I did not mean to startle you."

"That's alright," she lied through her professionally cultivated smile, "please have a seat."

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

"Yes, it's been quite some time. How have you been? How is your kingship going? Well, I hope."

"Well, as you can imagine, there are many aspects of my rule that I cannot discuss, even with you. Things are going as well as can be expected and I thank you for asking."

"So, what brings you here tonight, Bill?"

"Well, on the positive side, I have discovered a branch of my family tree that is alive and well and still living in Bon Temps."

"Well, that's wonderful for you. Did they receive you well? I know the anti-vampire movement has been ramping up since the Edgington fiasco."

"Why, yes, they did. One in particular a little too well, I dare say," Bill said as he shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

"What do you mean?"

"One of the lawyers in my employ, Portia Bellefleur, and I embarked on a relationship of purely sexual gratification. I told her I would never love her."

"I don't understand, what does she have to do with..."

"I found out recently that Portia is actually my great-great-great-great granddaughter."

"Oh my."

"That was my reaction, as well. I resolved that she and I would never...again. To my shock and surprise Portia let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to continue carnal relations with me. I refused her, Dr. Broussard. She would not take no for an answer."

"You didn't...did you?"

"No, but she is a bit of a tigress, that one. I had to glamor her. I had no choice," he said apologetically.

"Normally, I would not approve of such a thing—glamoring is such a violation of one's person. But I understand your dilemma. And how exactly did you approach that? I mean, what did you say to her? I'm curious."

"I...told her that we would never have relations again."

"Well, that seems kind enough. What is it Bill, why are you smirking like that? What's so funny?"

"I told her that whenever she saw me she would be so terrified that she would run away screaming."

"Well, that's a bit much—run away screaming in terror? Really?"

"I was in a vicious mood. But it has been kind of funny..."

"Bill, that's only funny to you."

"I will fix it. I will go to her tonight, I promise, and tell her she that she will not have to scream in terror anymore."

"That would be the humane thing to do."

Bill looked at her then, his smirk now replaced with a grimace. She knew instantly that she'd said the wrong thing.

"I'm sorry, Bill. I've offended you."

"No, it is not that. I have been confronted by my humanity these past few weeks too many times to count. I think I am going insane, Dr. Broussard."

"What do you mean?"

"Sookie is back."

"Well, if anything could drive you insane it would be Sookie. I thought she died."

"We all did. It turns out that she was just...away."

"How long has she been back?"

"Not long, a few weeks, now."

"And what effect has her presence back in Bon Temps had on you?"

"Well, I have told you about her propensity for endangering her life at every possible turn—that has not changed."

"Bill, I didn't ask how Sookie was, I asked how you're doing..." Dr. Broussard asked him gently.

"I have moved on with my...I have moved on since you and I last met. As a matter of fact, Sookie came calling unannounced and was able to bear witness to that fact with her own eyes."

"Bill, you and I both know she did not come 'unannounced'." Dr. Broussard gave him a look that let him know that she knew better.

"Alright, but I needed to make a point and she got it."

"And how did that work out? Are you both clear on the fact that the relationship is truly over?"

"Well, that is the thing. There is just so much going on right now, so much hanging in the balance. Amidst all of the turmoil that comprises my existence at this time, Sookie, in the short time that she has been back, has fallen in love with Eric Northman, the perpetual thorn in my side and in my political endeavors. I had the opportunity to have him executed, the right, the sanction of the Auth...he...she...I let him go. And worse than the repercussions I will surely suffer for doing so, I do not even know why I did it. He has changed, you see? He was kneeling before me, all innocent and magnanimous—I damn near wanted to fuck him myself, the bastard!" Bill rose up from the couch with such vampire speed that it tipped over, alarming Dr. Broussard. He was standing in a corner of the room, his back to her, rage seething from every pore of his preternatural body.

"Bill," Dr. Broussard approached him cautiously, "Bill, you must reconcile yourself with your humanity once and for all. Or let it go and truly be whatever it is you think you are supposed to be."

"What I think I am supposed to be? I would rather be that cold dead thing, with no heart, no capacity to love, than to go through this hell for eternity." He turned around to face her, the blood tears, always jarring to mortals, streaming from his eyes. "Do you realize, that because of our blood bond I can feel her, always, in my head even when I erase her from my heart? I feel her pain and right now she is fucking the Viking—I feel her ecstasy! It is unbearable! Be what I am supposed to be? I have been struggling with that for two hundred years, Dr. Broussard!" he yelled as he bared his fangs at her.

Dr. Broussard dreaded the words she needed to say, but found herself compelled to say them loud and clear, even if it meant the end of her life.

"Bill, no matter which way you choose to go, the fact is that there is no way to escape the pain. It's how you deal with it, how you work through it that matters. It may never go away, but I promise that over time, you'll find that all of that pain becomes just a dull ache."

"I do not have time—no more time!" he roared at her and grabbed her throat with one hand as he pinned her against the wall with the other.

"Bill, please let me go," she said in panic, her hands clawing at the stone fortress that was his chest.

"This is not what I think I am supposed to be; this is what I am."

"What you are is a being who must kill to survive. You are also a being who loves. You may be more human than even humans are because at least you acknowledge what you are while we are always in denial about the monsters at heart that we truly are. I'm sorry if that insults you. You are a lesson in duality, as we all are, Bill. All of this torment is not necessary. Be the Killer that Loves; be the Lover that Kills—be all of it. Start right now," she said calmly,with clarity in her voice that rang in his head like a bell.

"Thank you, Lydia," he smiled grimly at her. He placed a gentle kiss upon her lips, looked her in the piercing grey orbs that were her eyes and then ripped her throat open savagely and with abandon.


End file.
